Dark red clouds frame the Santa Cruz river valley.
Paula left around 6am for Bisbee. I was up slightly later, feeling tired and not of epic quality. But I was very excited to get down to the Santa Ritas and ride with Lee. The route we had planned had too many good qualities. A return to the ‘good times’ of exploring the Santa Ritas, aimed towards finding a viable and challenging route for circumnavigating them. We had many good rides in exploration and completed the big loop back in February.
Just like old times, I guess. But we also had yet another road/trail of unknown quality and perhaps high adventure to explore. And any ride with a big climb (Hopkins) is OK in my book.
We met at the Smithsonian visitor’s center, then took off to climb Hopkins. I started to wake up, finally, but never felt very good. The pace was comfortable, but I just wasn’t feeling strong. I probably should have taken this as a bad sign, but the ride must go on.
After climbing 3000 feet, we readied our parachutes for the drop off Tia Juana ridge. I have often claimed in this journal that Sutherland is the rockiest road in Southern AZ (and perhaps the world). I take that claim back, and wish I have never attempted to elevate Sutherland above Tia Juana. This road is impressively rocky. My hat is off to anyone who can clean this entire downhill, 30″ of travel or no. Combine loose baby heads worse than Sutherland and a grade at times 20 to 30 percent and you have yourselves a mighty fine challenge. I forgot to mention the 2-3 foot deep ruts, chucker-block full of boulders, as well.
I started off with some confidence, almost cleaning a section I’ve never ridden before. Lee had about 30 PSI too many, and did not lower his seat, so he walked more than usual. After a few sections of walking, he started “Leifing” me (a common term down our way) into walking other sections and a general loss of confidence. He remedied those two errors then hopped on for some good riding.
At some point I was behind my seat, trying to maintain traction and stay out of the rut when I passed under a branch (one of many) across the road. If there were any other line I surely would have taken it. My head cleared but my camelback got caught for a second. The branch snapped back and hit my camera precisely on the LCD screen. Well piss. The next time I pulled it out for a pic I noticed the screen was shattered. Poor camera luck for me (I lost it on John Krein a week ago). Since the camera loss I’ve not been carrying it in the side pocket anymore. This time, of course, side pocket was the correct choice.
We reached Josephine Canyon, then made our way towards Temporal. I had some more bad luck with vegetation, getting completely stuck on a branch with my helmet, trapping my bike, et cetera. I guess it’s not really bad luck, but more a lack of care, or of awareness of my body.
Did I just say that Tia Juana ridge is the rockiest road on the face of the planet? I think Mansfield Canyon surpasses Tia Juana for loose, hardened geological content, but maybe only because it is much longer. Tia Juana definitely has sections that are much more nasty. But Mansfield is a complete body workout, and it never ends–until you get to the Santa Rita slickrock section.
Meanwhile Paula was destroying the course record on the Bisbee 1,000 stair run. It sounded like such a cool race and I almost did it instead of the big ride. She beat the course record by 2 minutes, and the race is only 34 minutes long. Then, she topped it off by winning the Barco Ice challenge (carrying an ice block up the stairs, as in old times). She rocks.
Lee and I floated down Temporal Gulch, on a rare dirt road devoid of momentum robbing, back straining rock. At least, rare for this ride. At this point we had a choice. The easy route was to continue descending to Patagonia, where cold drinks and tasty baked potatoes awaited us. The hard one was to take the “shortcut” from Fresno Spring over to Henry Tank. It saves you dropping to Patagonia, but we knew it would neither save us time nor energy. But this was OK with us. This route was one of the last unknown routes to explore in the Santa Ritas.
I had been conserving water for the past 3 hours, knowing that it could be hot in the afternoon and given that I neglected to bring my extra bottle. I put a frozen one in my camelbak, then didn’t even fill one up for my bottle cage. It was a costly mistake, it turns out.
There are two old, overgrown roads that almost connect the Temporal road to the Salero road. “The map” shows them as connecting, but says “very difficult to follow.” Looking on the aerials it is clear that they do not connect, but by walking up a wash it looked do-able. The first task was to find the east end of the road. We turned right at the landfill, then started rolling down a smooth road towards Patagonia. It went too far, but we had seen no other turn offs, so we hopped a gate, pedaled through some garbage, scared off a few crows, and hiked our bikes up a very old road out of the landfill. It had a FS number on it, and it was the right one (4100).
It turned west, then dropped steeply into a wash–completely unrideable and rutted out. It was looking very good. Eventually another road joined behind us and things improved. The canyon we were following was alive with trees, and some were even changing colors. Very beautiful, very quiet, very nice. It did not last.
After some difficult and only sometimes rideable climbs the road disappeared. We followed a faint track. “Oh my God” says Lee. He was looking off a 12 foot cliff. I think this is what they mean by “impassable by vehicle.” I found a way around it, then we commenced slogging up the sand. Next was a section of stickers to walk through. Fun and owwwie!
We were getting close to Johnson spring, but the going was slow. Another impressive cliff in the middle of a tight wash appeared. Fortunately there were nice footholds, so we were able to shoulder our bikes and cruise up it. It would have made a nice picture — “climb-a-bike.” But we were racing the sun now.
We reached a tightly strung ranch fence. Not sure if we would end up crossing it multiple times, we thought about it, but decided to cross anyway. Lee went over and I went under.
Finally a road did appear, and we were able to ride some sections. It was faint. Actually, it was some good riding and a nice area. Lee gave it 3 bonus points for not being a “very busy road.” You might say that.
It took about twice the effort than the Patagonia route, but we emerged the squaw gulch road in one piece. A pair of hunters pulled up in a truck. We stopped to talk and chat about the area (they agreed being out here doing anything was better than being in the city). Then I noticed the array of coolers in their truck. We asked for water and it was provided. I took drank one ice cold 12 oz bottle straight away, and asked for another to fill my bottle. I had about 20 oz now, which I thought was barely enough to get me back. Unfortunately I severely underestimated Bull Springs road. Lee has always told me that it’s not easy, but he also thinks the climb up Salero is long–and to me it just doesn’t seem very bad.
But I get ahead of myself. We were over the pass on the Salero road, so now we enjoyed a few miles of crusing downhill and short power hills. It felt really good, and this road gets bonus points for lack of traffic as well. It’s smooth and wide, so my eyes focused on the amazing scenery around and the beautiful evening we were experiencing.
I also forgot about how the Salero road changes from smooth and wide to narrow and bumpy at the Forest boundary. Normally this would be a good thing–something I’d welcome. But after today’s brutal downhills, hike-a-bikes and all around beat-me-up style of riding, it was not a welcome change. At this point we were 7.5 hours into the ride and had climbed 7500 feet.
The easy ride back to the car was not to happen. I actually felt OK until near Josephine Canyon, then things started to fall apart. My whole body just started revolting to any serious efforts. My legs were OK, my mind was still fresh but my body just had no energy in it. I felt like I wanted to lie down. Most of all I felt like a cold gatorade.
Lee was right. Bull Springs road is nothing to laugh at. It’s has quite a few seriously steep climbs in store, despite the fact that we were losing elevation on it. And it’s still rocky.
Lee gave me some of his bottle at the top of the last real climb, but it was too late to do any good. I had been dehydrated for the past several hours (ever since I started conserving water). The damage was done, and now all that remained was to get out and begin serious recovery. The last hour was interesting. On one hand I felt absolutely terrible. On the other, it was a perfect evening. We talked about how there was no where we’d rather be: finishing a nice satsifying loop on a peaceful, warm October evening. The sunset was gorgeous (see above). But I had made the a serious mistake in hydration and I was paying dearly for it. There was one good thing about it: I am now more familiar with what it feels like to be dehydrated. At first I did not know why I was feeling so weak and it took far too long for me to piece it together. And I questioned it at first. It never really got very hot, so I just didn’t think much about dehydration. I was just worried about running completely out of water (and being thirsty because of it), not about dehydrating myself into the ground. I didn’t think to look for unusual (uncharacterstic) signs of fatigue. I could have asked Lee for some of his water (he had 2 bottles and a camelbak). But I didn’t. To be fair, it is difficult to identify kinds of fatigue, especially after some of the brutal riding we had been through. But a smarter rider would have identified it earlier (hopefully beyond the point of no return). Maybe I’m a little bit smarter because of this ride. Maybe not.
One thing is for sure. Lee is still as strong as ever. He kept the gas on until the end, and never seemed tired. I told him he should do the Soul Ride if he wants to. I think he’ll do well.
Driving home was painful. My back and shoulders ached, my gut felt like crap and I just wanted to die. Fries and giant shake from Mickey-D brought me a brief session of energy, but it was only enough to make it home. Food was now my top priority (that’s what epic riders outta do), and there was plenty at home, but we were also invited to a dinner get together. The idea sounded good on paper–it’s easier to eat until you can’t breathe at a restaurant. However, it was Saturday night, we were in a big group and it turned out to be exactly not what I needed. The place was loud, the food took forever to arrive and I was battling just to keep my head up and my wits about me. It was bad, real bad. By the time the food arrived I could barely eat and didn’t even finish it all. And the people next to us would not stop yelling. It was very interesting to hear 40 year olds give 12 year old level analyses of the debate, at 80 decibels no less.
Now, it’s Sunday and I’m paying for all the poor choices of yesterday. Even after a long nap I’m still not feeling very good. Trailwork, or any work for that matter, was out of the question.
48 miles, 9000 feet of climbing, 9.5 hrs, 50 TopoFusion difficulty (ouch)
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